StoryTel Welcomes Phil Halpin as In-House Film Editor

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StoryTel is delighted to welcome Phil Halpin as its first full time in-house video editor and Vice President of Production. Phil will oversee the post production process on all our projects, and be responsible for making sure our productions meet their milestones, deadlines and broadcast dates.

We've hired Phil away from a successful, 15-year career as Vice President of Marketing at U.S. Inspect, which included a big emphasis on corporate video production as well as web-based marketing. Phil has also often worked or volunteered his time on Saturdays and holidays for StoryTel, and has been my preferred video editor for over 20 years. He shaped all of the On Assignment documentaries, and was the primary editor on some of our most acclaimed films, such as Saint John Cantius, Restoring the Sacred.

We’re very excited to finally be able to fully tap into his full attention, talent, and creative energy. We look forward to increased output and the development of many concurrent projects.

Great News - St. Peter Video Project Helps Raise Over $2.5M

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We're so pleased to report that we were recently told that Fr. Cook and team at St. Peters in Omaha have raised over 2.5 million dollars for their restoration effort and that the video we produced for them plays a key role in every fundraising presentation. Here's a quick update video we made about it and sent to our donor base for our Christmas appeal. 

St. John Cantius Restoring the Sacred Reaches Nearly Every Country in Spanish Speaking World

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November 2012 marks StoryTel’s entry into the Spanish-speaking market throughout Latin America, Spain and the US. Some of what I’m going to tell you next may seem exaggerated, but it’s not.

By way of EWTN’s International TV broadcast, Saint John Cantius: Restoring the Sacred was able to reach every single Spanish speaking country in North America, South America and Europe. Our program is being watched in Español in 26 Spanish speaking countries including Spain, Argentina, Mexico, and Venezuela — as well as the United States.

This didn’t happen by accident. Instead, we made the decision to meet the Spanish speaking homes where they are at — using the same language they hear everyday. It’s easy to understand how the sound of one's native tongue is the sweetest sound. In a world where spoken word is king, we couldn’t rely on subtitles to inspire this new audience.

In partnership with Tom Krol, of Level 10 Sound, StoryTel hired over a dozen talented voice actors to immerse our new audience in this miraculous Chicago experience. The result was our Spanish language dubbed translation, San Juan Cancio: La Restauraciòn De Lo Sagrado.

San Juan Cancio has already been broadcast three times throughout the Latin American world this November and will continue to air in perpetuity, much like the Saint John Cantius program in English.

This means that we've added almost two whole continents of potential StoryTel viewers and expanded our total viewership market by millions. But the good news doesn’t stop there.

Our partnership with EWTN has broken through the glass ceiling of viewership in 2011. We are now reaping the benefits of EWTN’s global market expansion in 2012.

From reaching 160 million homes in 2011 — an impressive number to begin with — to over 200 million homes in 2012, its difficult to keep up with the growing impact our ON ASSIGNMENT documentaries are having given the explosion of viewers craving an inspiring message in a turbulent world.

This accomplishment began with the financial support of our donors. Our donors are a fundamental part of the StoryTel team and we couldn’t have done it without them. So to our donors thank you for all your support and congratulations to you as well, for the fantastic success of Saint John Cantius: Restoring the Sacred!

May God bless you, your family, and your work.

StoryTel Client, Sancta Familia, featured in Archdiocese Publication

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The Archdioces of Omaha just published good article about Sancta Familia, the non-profit clinic located right next store to our main office. Sancta Familia is a medical apostolate in the Archdiocese of Omaha, which means it's a lay organization devoted to the mission of the church in the world.

StoryTel Foundation helps them promote their good work so more prospective patients in Omaha area are aware of them as a resource. Much like we view ourselves as God's tool for mass communication, we appreciate how they view themselsves as God's tool for healing:

"We assume that Jesus sent them here for something he wants us to help him fix because we don't cure you; God cures you," said Dr. Lloyd Pierre, the staff family practitioner and also a member of St. Peter Parish. "He's just using us as a tool. The way we interact with our patients is we see ourselves as God's instrument to heal whatever your illness." 


Thanks to all at Sancta Familia for their continued good work.

'What About Me?' The Hearing Impaired Audience

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Behind the Decision to Close Caption ON ASSIGNMENT Documentaries

It was Christmas time, 2008. We had just completed the new master for Saint John Cantius, Restoring the Sacred and I was eager to show it.

I was sitting in the living room with my best friend from high school, John Caton, at his house in Kansas city. I put St. John Cantius, Restoring the Sacred in the DVD player and pressed play as John’s daughter, Megan, sat down at the end of the couch to watch.

After two minutes, she was asking enough questions that I paused the program. “What’s the matter?” I said. John turned to me to explain,

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John Caton and his daughter Megan as Santa and his elf.“Megan’s asking, ‘What about me?’ because she’s hearing impaired and can’t understand what it’s about.”

My excitement turned to guilt. I had never considered that a hearing impaired person would miss out on the message in our film.

That day motivated me to adapt StoryTel productions for those with hearing loss by adding closed captions.

Nearly 14% of the people in the U.S. have some amount of hearing loss, with a large share being at least 65 years old (Gallaudet Research Institute).

That is a large group of people who could benefit from our programs. Networks like EWTN, expect third party programming, such as our ON ASSIGNMENT documentaries, to arrive with closed captioning already encoded on the video.

In 2008, we were not a foundation and we had very little in the way of production funding. Today, we are still very small by industry standards, but we are now able to make it possible for Megan, and others like her, to be inspired by StoryTel productions.

We’ve just begun utilizing technology, which allows us to encode the closed captioning directly onto our videos before they reach EWTN or DVD, making it possible to view the closed captions on any television made after 1993.

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From now on all ON ASSIGNMENT programs will offer closed captions.

I am happy to announce that the ON ASSIGNMENT programs, St. John Cantius: Restoring the Sacred, St. Peters: Where Heaven Meets Earth, and Miles Christi: In the Mission Fields of America, will also inspire the hearing impaired across the United States and around the world.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: StoryTel Productions to Reach New Audience of Millions

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EWTN to Air Saint John Cantius Documentary in Spanish, October 2012

OMAHA, NE — July 26, 2012 — The investigative documentary, ON ASSIGNMENT: St. John Cantius Restoring the Sacred, by StoryTel Productions, has been adapted for Spanish audiences, renamed San Juan Cancio, La Restauración de lo Sagrado, and will soon premier to millions of Spanish speaking viewers in EWTN’s global television network during the month of October, 2012, a new audience for StoryTel productions.

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ON ASSIGNMENT: San Juan Cancio, La Restauración de lo SagradoSpanish-speaking viewers across the United States and throughout the Latin American world will soon be able to see the inspiring and hopeful, true-life story of the spiritual revival of St. John Cantius church in Chicago. This timeless ON ASSIGNMENT classic has been expertly dubbed into Español for StoryTel’s new international viewing audience.

“What’s so exciting about this documentary,” says Don Carney, the film’s producer and director, “is that viewers are transformed and inspired by watching the stunning changes that took place, the way people came out of nowhere to participate, overcoming setbacks along the way, and all because one person said ‘yes’ to God.”

This inspiring parish revival story of St. John Cantius church in Chicago, was captured by StoryTel Productions’ ON ASSIGNMENT, an investigative made-for-television documentary series uncovering dramatic, transformative and true stories of the Divine at work in the world.

ON ASSIGNMENT: St. John Cantius, Restoring the Sacred, has continued to air internationally on EWTN in English, since its premier in 2009. “The program has been well received,” says Rebecca Amos, of EWTN Programming, “particularly by those Catholics who wish to preserve our historic churches.”

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StoryTel’s audio engineer, Tom Krol of Level 10 Sound, spent many hours meticulously translating and dubbing the voices to create an authentic experience for the audience. Krol created an extremely accurate Spanish translation for the film, even accounting for language nuance and assigning a different voiceover artist for each person in the story.

The Spanish program, appropriately renamed ON ASSIGNMENT: San Juan Cancio, La Restauración de lo Sagrado, will premier in the month of October, 2012 as part of EWTN’s International Fall Line-up.

EWTN will promote the StoryTel production, during the month of October, in their programming guides targeting the Spanish market. The documentary will air throughout North and South America as well as Spain.

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